Hello everyone! It is finally that time, the Myth Weavers Storycrafting contest has begun! Entrants will have from now until 11:59 PM (EST) February 15th, 2019 to complete a short story revolving around the holiday, Day of Bones. Details for the contest, the great prizes, and a place to ask questions may be found in the Storycrafting Announcement thread.

Restoring Evil: An Unbalanced World

Howdy folks! This is my first time DMing here on Mythweavers, or DMing via play by post at all. The campaign I've got for you today is a little different, being an evil campaign, but it's got a concept I came up with years ago and have loved ever since, but have just not been able to put into play. But, roleplaying via play by post gives me a unique opportunity to really let this concept shine.

The Concept: Essentially, a major god of evil has been slain by a group of powerful (think 20th level) adventurers. However, this act has thrown off the balance of the world. Things are beginning to head towards trouble, and it seems the only way to fix it is to restore balance...But of course, the god-killing heroes don't want to do it. Enter you: A group of scoundrels and rapscallions who are the only ones willing to do this dirty job.

What I'm Looking For: I'm hoping for a group of mature, responsible people who can play a group of evil and immoral characters without falling into complete debauchery, or endlessly backstabbing each other.
Tonally, I tend to keep things pretty light, but I like to think I can get things serious when the mood calls for it.
As far as posting schedule goes, I'm fairly lenient. As long as you manage something like 4-5 posts every week, I should be satisfied.
As for the contents of those posts, I'd like you to give me something to work with, and bigger is probably better here, but I understand if you just can't get the juices flowing and end up putting out a shorter post. After all, how much flavor can you pack into making an attack roll against an enemy?

Technical Stuff: Speaking of combat, we'll be doing this "theater of the mind" style. No battlemaps, just work with the space that I provide to you in my narration. Don't be afraid to invent minor details though. If you want to pick up a chair and smash it against someone's head, even if I haven't mentioned any chairs explicitly, I say go for it.
The deadline for applications will be March 1st, and I'll take a few more days to deliberate before picking out players. I'll be looking for 4-5 players for this game, but if more catch my eye, then the size of the party very well may expand.

The Setting: The setting for this campaign is going to be a homebrew one that I've been thinking about for probably a year now. To give you a brief overview: the world is structured as one large continent, with several countries that are all based on a certain kind of mythology. There's more specific details in the game thread itself, but there's still not a ton solidified, so I'm definitely open to generating new ideas. If you want to come from a specific town, or be a member of a specific royal family, I say go for it.

Game Description:

Everyone is celebrating.
Abaddel, god of demons and evil, is dead. He has been slain by a group of four powerful adventurers, who have now retired to safety. There are parades in the streets, taverns are full, churches holding sermons in celebration.
Everyone is celebrating.
In the Abyss, there is a power vacuum. The goddess of devils, Tyregal, moves her forces to take the Abyss, and put an end to the millennia long Blood War. Cultists sacrifice in her name, evil paladins begin to mobilize to bring in a new world order of madness and evil.
Everyone is celebrating.
Everyone but you. You are a scoundrel, a fiend, someone that most would consider "evil". And though you may not have had any great fondness for Abaddel personally, you know what this is. A new era for peace, for the self-righteous puritans that think themselves so much better than you to persecute you further. Young heroes are emboldened, slaying orc strongholds, rampaging through goblin tribes, and even laying waste to the slums in cities that hold mostly "monstrous" races.
So when the world starts falling into chaos because of the fundamental blow that has been dealt to balance, you are the only one who is willing to do anything about it.

Um, question; would being 'evil' in this involve destructive and corruptive acts (assassinating heroes, turning nobles into hedonistic fools, burning farms, etc), more dissident and rebellious acts (stealing from tax collectors, graffiti-ing churches, yelling 'The King is a Fink!'), or would it just be a different point of view (protecting 'evil' races from genocide at the hands of 'good' races, promoting peaceful resolution, etc)?

Sorry about the lack of replies here, I was so focused on the submissions and chargen questions I forgot about the ad!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lintlie

This seems like an interesting concept.

I'm wondering how much will be RP based, NPC based, puzzle based, and combat based?

I'm hoping to have a decent balance, but definitely more roleplaying than combat. In my in-person sessions, I tend towards only 1 or 2 fights per session in sessions that run 2-3 hours. As far as puzzling goes, if I include it, I like to include it in ways the characters can solve the puzzles as well as the players. For instance, I wouldn't include a basic logical puzzle because that's testing the players, not their characters. But I might include a mystery to solve, since that requires question-asking on the part of the players, as well as skill checks on the part of the characters. And NPCs will likely take a backseat to players here, but I really like coming up with fun characters for PCs to interact with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeofel

I'm very interested in this, but I'm wondering if you guys would be tolerant of a complete noob to both DnD and PbP?

Oh, absolutely! I'm always willing to field new players, and I've personally got little experience with PbP myself, so you're in good company. ;p

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avaday Daydream

*reads the description*

Um, question; would being 'evil' in this involve destructive and corruptive acts (assassinating heroes, turning nobles into hedonistic fools, burning farms, etc), more dissident and rebellious acts (stealing from tax collectors, graffiti-ing churches, yelling 'The King is a Fink!'), or would it just be a different point of view (protecting 'evil' races from genocide at the hands of 'good' races, promoting peaceful resolution, etc)?

Why not all of them?
In more seriousness, there's probably going to be room for an equal mix of all of these elements, but not too much of a focus on one over the other. Especially the "different point of view" angle! I really love playing with the narrative of "evil" races and how they're ultimately just people like anyone else, so there's definitely going to be plenty of that to go around.

So, I'm new here to Myth Weavers, but I've played D&D for a bit. By no means an expert, though. So, me being a complete noob, how exactly do I apply? And what exactly is allowed, in terms of supplements?

So, I'm new here to Myth Weavers, but I've played D&D for a bit. By no means an expert, though. So, me being a complete noob, how exactly do I apply? And what exactly is allowed, in terms of supplements?

In the post at the top there is the word forum click on that and it will take you to the game's subforum. There will be all the information you need in its application and ooc forums.

I'd love to play an unusual race for this (since that seems to be kind of the idea already). What would you say about a centaur character? I know that centaurs tend to be seen as either wise stargazers on the side of good (Chronicles of Narnia) or folk who are wild and can be dangerous but are generally peaceful (Harry Potter). My thought process behind this is that we have duergar as dark dwarves, drow as dark elves, svirfneblin as dark gnomes, and we all know humans can be dark on their own without a subrace. So how about either giving centaurs a dark subrace, or maybe my character can be from a notorious clan or tribe? Or maybe my character is bitter because of slavery by "good" people of either my family, or just me, or both? I understand, seeing as how these are different than playing a purely humanoid monster, if this wouldn't be feasible. It's just an idea I had.